L.M. Montgomery Quotes

March came in that winter like the meekest and mildest of lambs, bringing days that were crisp and golden and tingling, each followed by a frosty pink twilight which gradually lost itself in an elfland of moonshine.

My pen shall heal, not hurt.

We resent the thought that anything can please us when someone we love is no longer here to share the pleasure with us, and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our sorrow when we find out interest in life returning to us.

Oh, sometimes I think it is of no use to make friends. They only go out of your life after a while and leave a hurt that is worse than the emptiness before they came.

I've put out a lot of little roots these two years," Anne told the moon, "and when I'm pulled up they're going to hurt a great deal. But it's best to go, I think, and, as Marilla says, there's no good reason why I shouldn't. I must get out all my ambitions and dust them.

I suppose that's how it looks in prose. But it's very different if you look at it through poetry…and I think it's nicer…' Anne recovered herself and her eyes shone and her cheeks flushed… 'to look at it through poetry.

…and he wasn't reconciled to dying. Dora told him he was going to a better world. "Mebbe, mebbe," says poor Ben, "but I'm sorter used to the imperfections of this one.

You noticed that I wore this outfit twice? Why, the only thing you wear twice is a sour expression.

Let's sum up... a little house, white and green or to be made so... with trees, preferably birch and spruce... a window looking seaward... on a hill. That sounds very possible... but there is one other requirement. There must be magic about it, Jane... lashings of magic... and magic houses are scarce, even on the Island. Have you any idea at all what I mean, Jane?"Jane reflected."You want to feel that the house is yours before you buy it," she said."Jane," said dad, "you are too good to be true.

Mrs Allan says that whenever we think of anything that is a trial to use we should also think of something nice that we can set over against it. If you are slightly too plump, you've got the dearest dimples; and if I have a freckled nose the shape of it is all right.

A house isn't a home without the ineffable contentment of a cat with its tail folded about its feet. A cat gives mystery, charm, suggestion.

It must be lovely to be grown up, Marilla, when just being treated as if you were is so nice...Well, anyway, when I grow up, I'm always going to talk to little girls as if they were, too, and I'll never laugh when they use big words.

Thank goodness, we can choose our friends. We have to take our relatives as they are, and be thankful…

Long ago, before I had ever seen a diamond, I read about them and I tried to imagine what they would be like ... When I saw a real diamond in a lady's ring one day I was so disappointed I cried. Of course, it was very lovely but it wasn't my idea of a diamond.

I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June.

There was no mistaking her sincerity--it breathed in every tone of her voice. Both Marilla and Mrs. Lynde recognized its unmistakable ring. But the former understood in dismay that Anne was actually enjoying her valley of humiliation--was reveling in the thoroughness of her abasement. Where was the wholesome punishment upon which she, Marilla, had plumed herself? Anne had turned it into a species of positive pleasure.

I think this story-writing business is the foolishest yet," scoffed Marilla. "You'll get a pack of nonsense into your heads and waste time that should be put to your lessons. Reading stories is bad enough but writing them is worse.

Walter looked about him lingeringly and lovingly. This spot had always been so dear to him. What fun they all had had here lang syne. Phantoms of memory seemed to pace the dappled paths and peep merrily through the swinging boughs–Jem and Jerry, bare-legged, sunburned schoolboys, fishing in the brook and frying trout over the old stone fireplace; Nan and Di and Faith, in their dimpled, fresh-eyed childish beauty; Una the sweet and shy, Carl, poring over ants and bugs, little slangy, sharp-tongued, good-hearted Mary Vance–the old Walter that had been himself lying on the grass reading poetry or wandering through palaces of fancy. They were all there around him–he could see them almost as plainly as he saw Rilla–as plainly as he had once seen the Pied Piper piping down the valley in a vanished twilight. And they said to him, those gay little ghosts of other days, "We were the children of yesterday, Walter–fight a good fight for the children of today and tomorrow.

Satirize wickedness if you must--but pity weakness.

Who would endure life if it were not for the hope of death?

Oh, as Dean says, nobody is free - never, except just for a few brief moments now and then, when the flash comes, or when as on my haystack night, the soul slips over into eternity for a little space. All the rest of our years we are slaves to something - traditions - conventions - ambitions - relations.

If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you'll never be and you need not waste time in trying.

I wonder if it will be—can be—any more beautiful than this,’ murmured Anne, looking around her with the loving, enraptured eyes of those to whom ‘home’ must always be the loveliest spot in the world, no matter what fairer lands may lie under alien stars.

Any human companionship, even the dearest and most perfect, would have been alien to her then. She was sufficient unto herself, needing not love nor comradeship nor any human emotion to round out her felicity. Such moments come rarely in any life, but when they do come they are inexpressibly wonderful - as if the finite were for a second infinity - as if humanity were for a space uplifted into divinity - as if all ugliness had vanished, leaving only flawless beauty.

Oh, this is the most TRAGICAL thing that ever happened to me!

I never hear about dear Mike. I wrote Ellen Greene and asked about him and she replyed and never mentioned Mike but told me all about her roomatism. As if I cared about her roomatism.

Well, I should like to see you go to college, Anne, but if you never do, don't grow discontented about it. We make our own lives wherever we are, after all... college can only help us do it more easily.

But pearls are for tears, the old legend says," Gilbert had objected."I'm not afraid of that. And tears can be happy as well as sad. My very happiest moments have been when I had tears in my eyes—when Marilla told me I might stay at Green Gables—when Matthew gave me the first pretty dress I ever had—when I heard that you were going to recover from the fever. So give me pearls for our troth ring, Gilbert, and I'll willingly accept the sorrow of life with its joy." -Anne

Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?

I'm afraid concerts spoil people for everyday life.

She told herself that she longed greatly to go back to those dear merry days when life was seen through a rosy mist of hope and illusion, and possessed an indefinable something that had passed away forever. Where was it now--the glory and the dream?

I was very much provoked. Of course, I knew there are no fairies; but that needn't prevent my thinking there is.

The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth.

Don't be fretting...about me marrying. Marrying's a trouble and not marrying's a trouble and I sticks to the trouble I knows.

I hear the Wind Woman running with soft, soft footsteps over the hill. I shall always think of the wind as a personality. She is a shrew when she blows from the north -- a lonely seeker when she blows from the east -- a laughing girl when she comes from the west -- and tonight from the south a little grey fairy.

That's all the freedom we can hope for - the freedom to choose our prison.

When weeds go to heaven, I suppose they will be flowers.

Life is worth living as long as there's a laugh in it.

It was not, of course, a proper thing to do. But then I have never pretended, nor will ever pretend, that Emily was a proper child. Books are not written about proper children. They would be so dull nobody would read them.

Mrs. Lynde says, 'Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.

Anne reveled in the world of color about her."Oh, Marilla," she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in with her arms full of gorgeous boughs, "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it? Look at these maple branches. Don't they give you a thrill--several thrills?

And yet... you wouldn't want it to stop hurting... you wouldn't want to forget your little mother even if you could.

Then the immortal heart of the woods will beat against ours and its subtle life will steal into our veins and make us its own forever, so that no matter where we go or how widely we wander we shall yet be drawn back to the forest to find our most enduring kinship.

But I believe I rather like superstitious people. They lend color to life. Wouldn't it be a rather drab world if everybody was wise and sensible . . . and good? What would we find to talk about?

…but youth yearned to youth.

I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've never been able to believe it. I don't believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage.

Gilbert put his arm about them. 'Oh, you mothers!' he said. 'You mothers! God knew what He was about when He made you.

I don't believe Old Nick can be so very ugly,' said Aunt Jamesina reflectively. 'He wouldn't do so much harm if he was. I always think of him as a rather handsome gentleman.

The p'int of good writing is to know when to stop.

Don't you just love poetry that gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back?

…determined to enjoy her luxury of grief uncomforted.

The gods, so says the old superstition, do not like to behold too happy mortals. It is certain, at least, that some human beings do not.

There isn't any such thing as an ordinary life. (92)

Ilse and I hunted all over the old orchard today for a four-leaved clover and couldn't find one. Then I found one in a clump of clover by the dairy steps tonight when I was straining the milk and never thinking of clovers. Cousin Jimmy says that is the way luck always comes, and it is no use to look for it.

Mrs. Hammon told me that God made my hair red on purpose and I haven't card for him since.

Folks say I've never been quite right since - but they only say that because I'm a poet, and because nothing ever worries me. Poets are so rare in Blair Water folks don't understand them, and most people worry so much, they think you're not right if you don't worry.

Jimmy Murray, you are an ass,' said Aunt Ruth, angrily.'Well, we're cousins,' agreed Cousin Jimmy pleasantly.

A woman who has a sense of humor possesses no refuge from the merciless truth about herself. She cannot think herself misunderstood. She cannot revel in self-pity. She cannot comfortably damn any one who differs from her.

I have made up my mind that I will never marry. I shall be wedded to my art.

Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I'd look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer.